Evaluation of cyclone gasifier performance for gasification of sugar cane residue—Part 2: gasification of cane trash

In Part 1 of this two-part paper, results from gasification of bagasse in a cyclone gasifier have been reported. In this paper results from gasification of cane trash in the same cyclone gasifier are presented. The cane trash powder is injected into the cyclone with air as transport medium. The gasification tests were made with two feeding rates, 39 and 46 kg/h at two equivalence ratios of 0.25 and 0.20 and the gasification temperature ranging from 820°C to 850°C. It was found that the heating value of the producer gas is in the range of 4.5–4.8 MJ/Nm3(dry gas), which is sufficient for stable gas turbine combustion. Significant alkali separation has been achieved in the cyclone stage. However, the alkali levels and carryover particle concentrations in the producer gas were found to be higher than allowable in a gas turbine. Despite high ash melting temperatures found by the TGA-DTA, deposition problems cannot be excluded since some carryover particles in the producer gas seem to have been melted and since some gasification of K and Na compounds is indicated. As an overall assessment, cane trash appears as a more problematic fuel than bagasse for this application. Integrated experiments with a gas turbine need to be done for accurate evaluation of the possibilities to use the producer gas from the gasification of cane trash to run a gas turbine without problems of hard deposits and corrosion on the turbine blades.